Just wanting to further expand my knowledge, aside from foam blocks and pads, what's some of the best media to use within a canister filter? I refuse to use fluvals polishing pad's because they fall apart within 2-3 months and I get fiber's floating in my water. The fine blue pads are awesome. Been using some of the same ones from when I first got this filter. Others have compressed and just aren't as effective.

I'm sure by now they are all deactive but still provide good surface area for being (3) 100 and a 1000 gram bags of basically pebbles. New when I setup the tank, not going to spend money to replace on a well established aquarium. And after getting into the hobby, they are basically useless products for the exception of catastrophe.

Could be room for improvement, but I think my filter is well setup.

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" To reach manhood, we are all cast into the fire and purified by pain "

wow 2-3 months on a polishing pad... i change mine every few weeks to a month, if it looks gank then its time to change. with cichlids and pleco's it dont take long lol
took out the carbon and put in 1/2 litre seachems matrix, all the other sponges remain as normal for my fluval 206, gonna swap out for 406 soon and put the 206 on my smaller tank and have the same filter set up on both.

I can agree on that with the cichlids and pleco's. Used to have them and it made a difference with the polishing pads, but for the price, I'd rather just replace the blue pads ever so often than the white polishing pads. I'd clean them and re-use if possible but generally I replaced them every month. Didn't want to spend that money where I could do other things to make up for it.

I've cleaned my filter for the first time 2 days ago since february. My stocking is light with community fish and I have a ton of filtration with the FX5. Monthly with a huge bioload of cichlids and pleco's, started to do the same and realized I didn't have squat to clean off really. Now cleaning 6 months or so. Neglected this one because of work. 60 hours plus a week will do that.

edit: I'm sure the zero-carb/ammonia/phosphate removers are all inactive by now, seeming as though the tank has been up for well over 2 years. Surface area on roughly 1500 grams of small pellets is pretty good with the bag they are in.

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" To reach manhood, we are all cast into the fire and purified by pain "

i purchased a 5 meter roll of polishing filter where you cut your own,out of the 1st strip i had 10 filters and the strip is wide as the longest edge of the filter so its hardly touched the roll, wouldnt buy the pre cut packed versions cos as you say very expensive way of doing it.
buy all filter media on ebay as its so much cheaper, the roll cost me £10 including postage which is $16 or there abouts if you in usa.
mostly just wash the bio media, matrix never needs replacing just washing, and replace other filters as needed which tbh is rarely as i dont use carbon.